Washington museum shuts down Andil Gosine's exhibition

It was a break-up letter of epic proportions, ending a three-year relationship and breaking the hearts of over a dozen men and women on Valentine’s Day.

February 14 was the day artist and professor of Environmental Arts and Justice at York University in Toronto Dr Andil Gosine received a letter from the Art Museum of the Americas, cancelling his exhibition Nature's Wild with Andil Gosine, without any explanation.

In the letter, director of the museum Adriana Ospina told Gosine its parent organisation, the Organization of American States (OAS), decided to indefinitely suspend all temporary travelling on-site exhibitions, including Nature’s Wild.

It read, “Because we recognise the importance and value of the Nature’s Wild project, we understand and share your frustration at the challenges presented now.

“We deeply appreciate your dedication to the arts and culture of the hemisphere, as well as your expertise. We hope to have the opportunity to collaborate in the future.”

Gosine, who grew up in Tableland and moved to Canada with his family as an adolescent, spent three years planning to open the exhibition on March 21. The exhibition was based on his 2021 book Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean..

It explored a variety of themes including environmental justice, sexuality and sexual justice, and included a number of collaborations with artists and writers across the Americas, including Lorraine O’Grady, Kelly Sinnapah Mary, Bev Koski, Zachari Logan, Natalie Wood, Angie Quick, Deborah Root and Llanor Alleyne, Shani Mootoo, Rajiv Mohabir, Shivanee Ramlochan, Marsha Pearce, Sur Rodney Sur and Maximillion Alegria, and was edited by Annie Paul.

On January 20, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programmes and preferencing.” Then, on February 4, he issued another directing the Secretary of State to review US support to all international organisations and report how US money was being used and where cuts should be made.

That same day, Gosine was finalising the last details of the exhibition with the museum staff.

According to Gosine, on February 5 at 9.30 am, Ospina called him to say she was instructed to cancel his show. She gave no reason at the time, and the same was true when she followed up the call with her February 14 letter.

Also, on February 10, curator Cheryl D Edwards’ Before The Americas, a show of works by African descendants in the Caribbean and the Americans, was cancelled by the museum at the request of the Trump administration, which considered the exhibition a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative.

Gosine admitted the museum, located in Washington, DC, had been making the effort to be more inclusive over the past few years, so it was a big part of its identity. He believed it intended to change that to secure funding from the US government.

He recalled the museum staff had branded Nature's Wild as a “queer show,” and Before The Americas as “the Afro-Brazillian show.”

“In the context of the last five years of museum culture it's not surprising because there's been this effort to ‘be inclusive,’ but often that just means, ‘Tell us which boxes you’ve checked.’ They want to know your nationality, your gender, your ethnic identity as a kind of kudos to themselves for how inclusive they're being.”

However, Gosine’s show was not funded by the US government but by the Canadian government, creative grants he received and World Pride, which had selected it as one of their marquee arts events. The museum contributed very little.

“Trump did not direct anything related to mine. No penny of my show was supported by the US government. So it's a very different situation because TT is a member of the OAS, Barbados is a member of the OAS, other Caribbean countries are members of the OAS so the decision the secretariat is making is on behalf of all of us.

“This is about people bending to a new political order without having to.

“When I shared this news with the artists and writers I had invited into my show, a lot of them were like, ‘Let's take to the streets.’ And most of my work at that point was telling people to wait and let me gather the information, because I want to be sure of what happened.”

He said he felt responsible for the money granted to him and taxpayers trusted him to spend well. He had spent a lot of money, including shipping all the pieces to Washington, invited many people to the opening and would have nothing to show for it.

Feeling accountable, he wrote to the Canadian Mission explaining what happened and asked if it could help. He said in it’s reply, the mission expressed its support for him, sympathised with him, and said it could and would not do anything.

Gosine said the cancellation will affect him professionally but it would also affect the other artists. For some of them it was the first time being in such a big show and others had already bought their non-refundable airline tickets and paid for hotel accommodations.

And he could not just take the show to another museum as most museums had a three-five year schedule. Also, he had been “dreaming and living the space” and creating work around the space so simply relocating the show would be a problem.

“A lot of my shows depended on dramatic lighting and the experience as you walk through the long arc of history. People don’t come to see that painting and then that flower. It’s the wholeness of it. It's a strength I have, but it takes a lot of work and time and consideration, so I can't just switch another place, and the only places available are small ones.”

Fortunately, there will be rescue shows at smaller spaces in Canada showing some works from the exhibition.

Further information on the shows or actions that will be taken will be announced on March 21, the day the show was expected to open.